Turning Towards Light
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: When even Seraphimon's egg fails, Koji is left with only one option. But Cherubimon decides to spare him from that pain, and that which Duskmon caused. But where will that leave the feud between light and dark? And where will that leave Koichi?
1. Apathy

**A/N:** Sorry guys, but this story just wouldn't let me get away without writing it. Considering it wrote itself in my head, it didn't take all that long either (albeit the first chapter alone came out longer than what I had expected the entire fic to come out as). And since it's short (in terms of chapters: 3), I figured I might as well post it up as opposed to letting it cry on my hard-disk like a handful of other chapters and oneshots/poems (most of which are for my fictionpress account but there are several for here as well). This stems off episode 27: Stuck in the Sakkakumon with You. You know, the episode where Koji and Duskmon fought and Koji fusion evolved? Yep, that's the one, except it doesn't quite happen like that. So enjoy this somewhat ironic twist of events.

Oh yeah, one last thing. I skip the memories on purpose in this one. You know what happens, and it would have ruined the later description. So instead I put in a divider and allude to it rather than plodding through step by step.

* * *

_**Turning Towards Light**_

_Chapter 1 - Apathy_

The darkness was cold. Bitter. Unyielding. His eyes, blue and sharpened with years of training under various dojos, failed to piece the blanket and his feet were reduced to taking tentative steps in order to ensure his safety. It was a situation he not only disliked, but feared. Anything could loom from the infallible dark, and they would have the upper hand. They would, most probably, be not only more akin to the black than he, but able to hear the slight whispers of shoes scuffing gently against the floor…even as he tread with utmost care, balls of feet off the ground so that he could react as fast as possible should danger in actuality loom from the unseen depths. It might have appeared to be more advisable to remain in his position, but there were two flaws in that assumption: not only did he _hate_ the feeling of being a sitting duck regardless of the circumstance (it somehow shook him) but it would also dull his response to any threat. And it wasn't like he was going to get anywhere standing still.

His left hand was in his pocket, fingers wrapped tightly around his D-tector. His facial features were set in a definite scowl of concentration. Blue orbs stared uselessly into the darkness, trying to pick out any shape. For a moment, his entire attention was absorbed by the black hole before him, but when something failed to show within the first few minutes, his mind began to wander blindly along with his feet.

There was no almost silent bleep from his D-tector. In this silence it should have been as loud as a gunshot: unmistakable. Karatenmon's data was still being purified them. The scowl warped somewhat as he remembered the sword the other had cast into his mother's death, as if using a darning needle to pick apart the careless stiches of some useless toy. His teeth grinded, loud enough to for his ears to capture and amplify the sound until it sounded somewhat like a dentist's drill, but he paid it no heed. That bird-brain had cut unhealed wounds. He'd sat far up upon the pedestal. He had deserved to be cut down. Even the purification process within his digivice was proving the digimon had been evil to the core. The cleansing of Woodmon hadn't taken nearly as long. Within seconds the data had been screaming for release.

And that fight had barely meant anything to him. It was just getting rid of a problem in his face at a stage where he had barely known the others nor found himself particularly thinking of their well being. Even at this stage, he realised, thinking back to the words he had responded with to Karatenmon's psychological assault, he didn't entirely think of them as his friends. Why else would his subconscious mind yell out for all to hear that he didn't need friends? Either that, or it was the definition of friendship that was undermined. He didn't think so. The only thing that separated friend from family was blood. And he'd plainly said he didn't need either of them.

And if he'd said it without conscious thought, then it must be the truth. His hand tightened his grip on his D-tector as he took another step and remembered his mother's face in the only portrait he possessed of her…and the way his father refused to look at the portrait or him in the eye when the discussion came up. It was one of the things that had forced the rift between father and son; for as long as he could remember, his mother had been dead and his father had done his best to go on with life as if she had never existed. But it proved impossible. Too many people questioned the absence of a mother in the household. Too many people questioned his father's morality; that was one thing he hadn't ever done himself. He knew where his father was for all those hours; when he was young and not at school, he'd stay on the couch his father always got as a part of the office. He watched his father work diligently; so did those he worked with. Others didn't know what they were talking about; the marriage to Satomi seven years later seemed to solidify the belief. But that had nothing to do with their strained relationship. It was all careless gossip: trash to be discarded, an extra burden to carry along high mountains and roughed terrains. But it seemed to be something strapped to his back. There was many a time he wished he had known his mother, if even for a little while so the idea wouldn't be so…fanciful like the mist a child forever clung to. Even better, or worse depending on the perspective, he wished she was still alive and with them. Not often though; nowadays he stared into the photo's face for different reasons.

He took another step, then one more. The darkness persisted, dragging him down like the early morning fog in winter. The cold was odd; it wasn't chilling, and yet it still somewhat chilled him. The air was stale; a rational part of him wondered if it was possible to run out of air, but the black seemed to span on to infinity, so perhaps the chances of that was rather small at all.

One step further…and then he froze as a voice spoke out behind him.

'Who are you?'

The words were carefully enunciated, meticulously emphasised. They echoed in the darkness that before only silence and the warrior of light had occupied…or had this shadow of darkness been present too, simply waiting for the moment he let down his guard?

And he had, Koji realised slowly. His hand was still in his pocket, but the grip was lax. The balls of his feet were touching the ground. There was no way he'd be able to turn around and evolve before a cutting sword came down upon him, ending his life.

But only a coward would use that method, he thought. And whatever Duskmon was, he wasn't the coward his…allies were. Provided one could lump Cherubimon's warriors into the category of "allies" of course, considering the fact that Duskmon had killed Arbormon in their first encounter without the barest hint of remorse.

The wound the carmine sword had left was still present upon his back, although it had faded into a scar, pink with new skin just beginning to firm. It burned somewhat as the voice registered as Duskmon, and the chilling darkness that had spread from the dark warrior as he had clutched his head, repeating his name like a mantra.

If anything, _he_ should be asking the question, not the strange warrior of darkness.

'Tell me.'

The command wasn't as carefully pronounced as the previous statement; it displayed a lax in control. A lax of restraint. The boy's knees bent slightly forward. His heels lifted off the ground. His grip around the device in his pocket tightened.

'Dusk-' he began, using the sound of his voice bouncing off nothing to turn and attempt to evolve…but he had misjudged the other's sight and closeness. A hand snatched his jacket and shirt and yanked him off the ground with little grace, and the D-tector fell from the startled grip to spiral into the abyss below and disappear. Truthfully, it may have only slid a few feet away, but in a world where sight was a luxury he didn't possess, it may as well have been on Pluto. Particularly since he didn't have the opportunity to look for it, dangling an undefined number of feet off the ground at the mercy of a digimon who could probably cut his throat without a care. Coward he may not be; he'd given them more than a fair fight after all, but he was no honourable warrior.

But the fist that held him in the air was trembling slightly. Considering that, apart from gravity, it was the other's only mode of support, it functioned the same as a thinly truncated tree swaying in the wind.

'I need to know…' The words were getting more and more desperate. It was not only bemusing to the unfortunate subject, but frustrating as well to not know the entire story.

'Who-' he began, only to be cut off as the other squeezed harder, sharpened points (nails perhaps?) dug into his chest.

'Be silent!'

That same darkness from before; he could feel it around him. Soothing almost, numbing…It had pained Duskmon, he remembered, but even then it hadn't brought any pain to him as it had burst out. It had numbed the searing pain in his back, letting him embrace the blissful healing sleep called unconsciousness. It had only been when he'd almost tracked Mercurymon and Ranamon to their little hideout that the pain had returned to him. Even now, it was almost caressing, even as it burst uncontrollably from the other. Even if he couldn't see it, he could somehow sense that was what was occurring at that moment.

'I _must_ know. Who _are_ you?'

Something else joined that darkness, making it far more tangible and far less…dark. It was surprising, he noted with some irony. He could suddenly see better; somehow light had entered the tarry, and yet it had felt far better in its absence. Not the darkness he had wandered aimlessly in, but the darkness the other emitted in his own agony. It was something comforting. It was an almost sadistic thought, but there was no denying the blanket of apathy was welcomed, particularly when it was preceded or followed by pain.

Those black tendrils became more visible as the black turned into a lead grey, but they also became sharper, circling around him like claws waiting to tear the tender flesh of his skin and muscle from the framework of bone that held it erect in its position. The next second, they were digging into his mind with a fresh ripple of pain…or perhaps a wave travelling towards its peak would have been a more accurate term, as a ripple dimmed in intensity as it spread from its point of origin. Waves, particularly sinusoidal waves which were pretty much the basis of _anything_ that could be defined as a wave, rose to peaks before sinking to throughs and then rising again. An endless cycle…unless it tapered off at some point and melted into the line one called the origin or the zero-point.

But that moment took a long time in coming. Before that came the memories as the darkness tore apart his mind…and the icy barriers that held all the emotions in check.

* * *

His head spun with symphonies of pain rolling down the length of his body. The rest of him was numb, dangling limply in the air before his form was cast aside like a rag doll as the cause of it all tilted his head back and roared.

The warrior of light gritted his teeth; it was not only a reaction to the trembles that ran down his frame but a physical display of the sense of anger and, despite how much he'd have liked to deny it, weakness. He may have defeated Karatenmon, but apparently he had lost the mind-game. His mind had still been reeling from the psychological assault…and now the memories that concerned it all had been thrown upon him, along with the dam he'd so long held in check. He continued to shake as he recalled the blurred face of his mother, her arms reaching for him with tears streaming down her face. It was probably the last time he had ever seen her, he figured. It was almost as if she knew she was going to die, to vanish from his life…to be wiped from the world as a truck ploughed her and their car down. For some reason the wrangled metal pieces shone brightly in his mind: twisted metal, all dulled with age. He knew why; his father had tried to get it repaired. He'd seen quite a bit of it before it went off to the rubbish tip. Then, his father had been clutching his arm as if in pain. The features suddenly looked years older. Their wedding photo, before it was put away to never be looked at again, looked like it depicted two strangers from that moment henceforth.

He always thought there was something to the accident that his father never told him. The almost dead look in his eyes whenever someone brought it up, the way he never made eye-contact with him; he was a kid at that age, and like all kids was in that phase where they and they alone were the centre of the universe. It was somewhat regrettable, considering those years passed with two males under the same roof without a female to mediate them. The truth was, Koji simply did now know how to adapt to his father, who was working at least eight hours a day and rarely home, taking on both roles and suddenly becoming a more dominating part of his life. Considering it was normally his mother filling that role, the natural instinct had been to disobey and Kousei simply had no idea how to deal with that, particularly in a world where slapping or hitting kids for disobedience was rapidly becoming a crime. Whoever made the law evidently knew nothing about the difficulties of parenting. The consequence had left the young boy shut in his room for punishment.

And then there was his father' job to contend with, and the constant moving around. Never long enough to keep friends; he tried the first couple of times, but he was quickly labelled as having an attitude problem and the few friends he managed to make were quickly lost as he attracted more than his fair share of trouble. The couple that persevered disappeared into smoke when he moved again; they'd call each other a few times and then that would be the end of their friendship.

It was when he was six that his father got him a pet dog, and then that was pretty much it. A man's best friend; his only trusted confidant, filling in for the gaping hole in his life. He poured out all his troubles to the playful pup, and he didn't need human contact after that. The father figure basically became someone who kept the rules and ran the house. Classmates were simply an inconvenience that had to exist for there to be a "class". People continued to whisper, how cruel fate was to turn a child so lonely and cold, but they didn't know what they were talking about. Kittens butted his feet sometimes. He let them. Birds always flew away, even when they came later to nibble out of the hand of someone else his age. Who cared, really? He had everything he needed to survive. But he'd locked away his earlier self, the boy crying for his mother and clinging to the worn scraps that had taken her. The boy giving his father a hard time because neither of them knew any better; he'd always felt guilty afterwards, but it was so easy to persist when the other never said a word of blame. When he started, it was too late. The stage had already been set.

And Satomi; her face was the sharpest of all, glaring with the tendrils of the red sun shining all around her form and her face, and particularly her eyes, the window of the soul. Filled with warmth they were, and it made him instinctively push her away even if she hadn't married his father and entered a house that was perfectly fine without her (at least in his view; it obviously wouldn't have lasted forever but he was still far from adulthood and that maturity).

It was the sort of thing people dealt with slowly. Having it burst upon him at once, particularly with an enemy in front, was a no-go.

His hands groped around in the near-darkness for the D-tector. It may have been more efficient if he used his eyes as well, but he refused to take his attention off the entity before him, even if he remained in a slight hunch, muttering to himself. It was somewhat satisfying, if sadistically so, that the other was affected to. It served him right for nosing about in his mind and his life.

Somehow, the anger rising within him helped rebuild the wall, and his right fingers closed around the cold plastic of his D-tector. And then eyes, red but unlike the vivacious liquid of life as he had first associated the colour with. A earth-red may be more accurate; it was almost devoid of that life. It made things grow, but there was little spirit behind those eyes. Once, there would have been none, or a whole one slowly decaying by the passage of time and darkness. It didn't matter; there was a spark there, flaring with the same anger as the crimson eyes lowered to meet a frozen blue. Perhaps anger was the wrong word to describe the electricity that sizzled between them, but if it was he knew of no word that could describe the situation better.

But then darkness flared between them, breaking the spell. Red eyes, these ones holding a far better resemblance to, loomed out of the mist, passing over the blue form for a mere moment before focusing on its own, slowly unhinging, servant.

'What is the matter?' the voice, akin to a male, asked. The tone was tender, but somewhat scolding deep down: scorning almost, seeping not only with disappointment but with something else. Something dangerous. Something treacherous. 'Destroy this pathetic world. Destroy this pain.'

Despite himself, the other found himself shouting out. 'Don't listen to him!'

'Rid the world of this evil, and you'll never have to suffer again.'

'That's not true.' But even as the words forced their way past his lips, his mind protested them. It made him wonder _why_ he was protesting to words that were not directed to him. Perhaps he wasn't ready for the looming fight on the horizon. His hands held his spirits, his only weapon against the darkness, but his mind still grappled for silent footholds within his skull. He'd all but shoved the experience out of his mind, but between Karatenmon and Duskmon, the skin covering them was all but tender at best.

'He lies…' And it sounded so convincing that even Koji found himself believing it.

And then the darkness was being sucked in through a vacuum, and the surrounding blackness lifted into a medium tone of grey. Red blades extended, eyes raised and hardened, and reflex prompted the other to scan his fractal code through his own device and evolve.

* * *

It was a hopeless fight to begin with. Five warriors had failed to defeat this one, so did he really think he could stand up to the other on his own? He hadn't been left with much choice otherwise, elsewise he may have found his head detached from the shoulders. In any case, the warrior of darkness had managed to absorb or dodge every attack he had thrown at him. His beast spirit hadn't fared any better; the other had simply lifted his sword and the laser had split.

He was as bad as Karatenmon. The shoulder blades extended, sharp edges gleaming in the dim light, wherever it came from. Duskmon's expression didn't change but the swords swung to fulfil an arc to parry the blow: the first instance of anything other than holding a sword an inch away from his face to block. So he was afraid, the lupine thought with satisfaction. Good.

But the attack that came forthwith was unlike anything he had ever experienced before and it left him on the ground, broken and staring death in the face as a sword came to rest on his exposed neck.

'It's over,' Duskmon said to him, almost silently, moving the blade a little away to prepare for the final stroke.

It wasn't overconfidence; it couldn't have been; he hadn't particularly been left with much of a choice in the matter after all. But he couldn't believe it was all going to end here. Pain flared through his body: physical pain…but there was another pain underlining that. The pain of leaving knots untied to prick into his skin…and that, for some reason, hurt a lot more than the burns that littered his body. Who knew the light of the moon could be so searing to one's flesh?

There was his mother's portrait, collecting dust. Sad eyes, a small smile…he'd never figured out the person behind that image. His father, Satomi who had gotten caught in a problem that wasn't hers to carry…was he sorry for the way he acted all those years? Did he regret it all? Or was it that, in the fleeting moment before the thread of his life would be cut, his heart screamed in the pure agony of being left without the choice, without knowing the truth.

Ophanimon had promised him he'd learn the truth. It was the whole reason he'd made this journey. The whole reason he'd let people into his heart, people he knew were going to leave him…but no, he had been wrong. It was he who was leaving them. A final turn of irony where he could exact the revenge of a child being left behind as a mother's hand slid from the reluctant grip.

And there was his father crying. The stoic man hardly ever cried; he'd only seen those tears once or twice in his apparently short life. But he wasn't wasting away from cancer like those kids on the news. He wasn't being ploughed over by a truck speeding along the highway. He was going to die and no-one would be any the wiser. He was going to die alone, in the face of the one thing he should have been most powerful against. After all, what happened to the whole "light shining through the darkness" thing? The whole "good conquers evil" gig? It was all a lie; reality wasn't so easily predictable. Otherwise he'd know why his father was crying then. He'd know what he would do if the situation came again. Would he watch silently or climb into the embrace? Or do something else entirely? He'd never know, because the opportunity would never come.

Something cold trickled down his face, and his vision blurred slightly. But the gleam of the swords remained.

It was so cruel. They were taunting him. _He_ was taunting him. Why give him all this time to think about the end of his life? Just hurry up and do it already!

_He's not going to do it, you know. He can't._

His head rose slightly. The blade still hovered near his throat, albeit slightly closer, slowly inching towards his jugular vein, slowly sawing through that thread of life.

_He loathes you for what you represent, as the warrior of light. He'll make it slow. He'll make you suffer. But he won't be able to finish you off._

Blue eyes flickered from side to side.

_Where are you?_ He thought, lips parting without a sound escaping from his confines.

_Here,_ the voice replied. It was somewhat familiar, but he couldn't place it. _You don't need that pain on top of what you already carry. You don't need pain at all. It makes you weak. It makes you unable to achieve your full potential. It leaves you vulnerable, when you are clearly the stronger one._

And then it clicked.

_Cherubimon! _Those words almost escaped from his lips, but he held them in check. Teeth gritted again though. Would there never be an end to this cycle of manipulation?

_You misunderstand,_ the other said almost tenderly. _I simply seek a world without pain._

A world without pain didn't sound so bad.

_Pain is cruel. Pain is unfair. Pain is unnecessary. This world is tainted of it. I seek only to free this world from that pain, and its inhabitants._

It sounded tempting, but Cherubimon was the enemy they had fought against.

_But where are Ophanimon and Seraphimon, the angels who were supposed to protect you all? They have led you here…_

_But Duskmon is yours_, the warrior of light protested, even as he felt the effects of the words sinking in, dulling his pain. Perhaps it all didn't matter. Perhaps it really was unnecessary. Perhaps they were all wrong.

_He was, but he is a sad being lost in his pain. I had hoped to save him, but it was too late. Once a murderer murders his kin, there is no turning back for them. The kindest thing to do would be to let him rest. The kindest thing to do would be to defeat him, and obliterate pain, all pain, so such a sad tale never happens again. And he is causing you pain, is he not? It would be best for both of you. You'd both be at peace. Put on the blanket I give you. Use the power I can bestow upon you. This won't be your end Koji Minamoto. It is too much of a waste to see a child who can be saved withering away, slowly bleeding out into a dark void…_

Someone, at some point, had said something loud because Duskmon finally reacted. The cry of denial was almost human as the second sword, the one towards no-one had thought to spare a second glance, swung down to cleave the head from its pedestal.

It was the moment of truth. The moment of judgement. There was a flare of light from somewhere but it quickly faded into the shadows that loomed all round. There was a slight whistling in the otherwise stagnant air as the blade swung down…and the next second, the entire world was being blotted out, and he was accepting it without another thought.

It was a different sort of light that encircled him; it wasn't the light from his spirits that he was used to. It wasn't the refined cutting edge, but a thick blanket of wool and mist that soothed and numbed and diminished the outer world into somewhat of a dream. It was a pleasant change. It was one that washed away all the aches and pains of battle like a warm shower that filled one's head with a dizzying fog. What had he been concerned about? he wondered to himself.

That was until the whistling of a sword flew above his head, leaving an annoying and unwanted prickle of pain.

Of course; that was it: pain. He had to obliterate pain.

He bared his fangs, His back, spotted and marking him both as a man-eater and active hunter, sloped earthward as he stood upon four legs, balancing with ease. Claws gleamed as they caught light from an unspecified sword. Fur was combed back with grey. Eyes gleamed too, a yellow colour that bled from the liquid of life.

* * *

The sword swung and missed, clattering uselessly to the ground as the warrior of darkness lost his grip on it. His heart screamed furiously at him, but he couldn't help it. He simply could not do it. He still had no answers, and every fibre of his being was protesting to the notion of ending the life in front of him for whatever reason; he could not fathom it. If he could, he would obliterate it. Oh, how he longed for the earlier days where nothing could pluck even a single string by a picometre from the violin that was his heart.

He understood nothing. Just who was this boy? Why did the mere sight of his face bring so much pain to him? Why hadn't his memories helped? Why had they simply made things worse?

And why couldn't he simply end the problem right then and there?

He was still frozen in those thoughts when the warrior of light suddenly flared with dark energy, driving him a few paces back. Light and dark combined; what a conundrum. A literary paradox, but somehow it was happening right before his eyes.

And then a new digimon, a hyena shaped monster, leered at him with fangs ready to sink their teeth into his neck.

He readied his remaining sword as the monster sprung.

For some reason, he feared this creature. He did not know fear. He _shouldn't_ know pain, but fate had cursed him to experience it as he sought to eliminate that which plagued him to receive a final reprieve. But he instinctively knew that the emotion he was feeling then, this biting coldness, was fear.

Fangs clanged off metal again and again. Saliva dripped from the wide jaws, long tongue lapping up the excess without another thought as it lunged. Something white and creamy splattered on the ground as the hyena growled; he'd never seen a digimon like this before. For the time being, it was a nameless foe. Teeth bit into his skin, right passed the useless weapon in his hand; why couldn't he fight? Why couldn't he move? It wasn't that fear he was feeling; all digimon could sense fear. It wasn't that.

His power was fleeing from his body. Yes, that was it. And suddenly…his mind was engulfed in pain and he screamed: a human scream, long and terrifying and cloaked with agony.

And then the darkness was gone. They were in empty space, falling somewhere, towards something…and then he was pressed into the earth, stars gleaming above him and the hazy image of a scavenger about to feast as his body withered still in pain.

He could feel the paws pressing into his skin and muscle. The adversary, the bringer of pain…it had grown somehow. Or he had shrunk. The jaws gleamed white with light…and death. How ironic, that he had failed the very judgement that was now befalling him, lying nested amongst the earth his feet had barely touched upon and his eyes had barely seen, somehow fallen to the warrior of light while he,, the so-called bringer of death, had failed to take the life that would now take his.

There was a piercing pain, and then the scream grew sharper, more human as something was pulled away. And then his eyes were closing, almost against his will, capturing the last image of those yellow eyes staring at him in utter empathy.

And he tried to raise himself up, suddenly enthralled by horror as well as anguish as a great weight lifted from his body. A hand attempted to rise up, to grasp the fleeing moments of darkness in a failed attempt as that mercy was torn from him, leaving him with a spill of emotion and knowledge that overflowed the dark void that had been his soil. Tears flowed down his face, washing away the blood that stained it, and he trembled violently as the yellow eyes faded from view, mind attempting to organise the matter that had suddenly been thrown upon it.

_Blue…they're supposed to be blue…_

But there was something in them that spelt freedom. Any icy façade, a prison made of infallible glass that had been carefully carved away. It pushed his mind: the thoughts, the memories…it organised them, sleeving them into envelopes and into compartments that he could later fall upon…should the opportunity ever arise, and it seemed it never would. But it wasn't really the best time, all things considered, to go through an epiphany he really could have gone without. He didn't try to figure it out himself; that at least he could deny itself. It seemed so ironic…but some instinct told him the knowledge was only going to bring him pain in his last moments. He chose the numb darkness. The cold. Never mind it had been stripped from him; he clung to that which remained.

Blue eyes slipped closed and the hand fell uselessly to the ground with a soft "thump", failing to hear a cry or feeling the weight suddenly lift from his body.


	2. Choice

**A/N:** Yeah, I made Koji into a hyena (haiena is hyena in japanese). More "evil" looking than a wolf. And a bit more related than an eagle/lion I think. It took me forever to decide on a name too. Anyone who knows me by now or read enough of my ficswould know why I wrote evil in quotation marks there. Seriously, how many times have you found an antagonist in my fic who's completely and undeniably evil? Not a rhetorical question; I actually don't know the answer and would like to for future references if anyone else _does_ know.

By the way, Koichi hasn't got all his memories back at the beginning, hence why I've refrained from mentioning his name.

Uni computers do something to the spaces, so I apologize once again for that. Fixing it on my laptop doesn't always work; some of them change right back.

You know, this is a bit of a random point, but could you guys _please_ tell me what you think? My percentage of readers to reviewers is well under one percent for almost all of my Digimon fics...sadly.

Enjoy.

* * *

_**Turning Towards Light**_

_Chapter 2 - Choice_

Takuya was beyond shocked. They all were, but at least they had (or had not, depending on the perspective) the luxury of being absent from his current standpoint of things. They had all seen the warrior of light be struck down, and they'd all seen something change. They hadn't managed to get a good look at the new figure as Seraphimon'sdigi-egg had floated to the ground…or so the others told him. He had been unfortunately absent from that particular bout of proceedings, but the others had filled him in once they'd dealt with the annoyance that was Sakkakumon. But he had gotten the honour of having a front-row seat of the next fiasco.

They had all split up in search for Koji; after all, the others had seen him fly out of the beast-warrior of steel along with Duskmon. Patamon had been leading the way until he'd crumbled in fear and was now buried in Bokomon's belt-pouch. So the pair of them were with JP. Izumi and Tommy were together, and that had left him with Neemon by default. Somehow, he was glad though. The comical character was a relief to have along.

But that was doing nothing to the scene in front of him, even if his mind failed to grasp exactly what was going on.

Initially, he thought it was Koji pinned to the ground. The unconscious and blank face stained with tears certainly looked akin to the stoic warrior of light, however it only took a moment to realise that was not the case. The clothes were different. Even the form was different; he'd seen Koji unconscious before, and there was something different about this form. And then the lumbering mass upon the boy shifted and he realised who the other truly was.

He was the one dubbed "other Koji". The boy that had tried to follow them onto the elevator but had boy in the next carriage over on the train to boy who apparently was just about to get eaten by a hyena.

'Hey!' he yelled as Neemon quaked behind him. 'Get off and fight like a…mon!' He stumbled a little over the last word, simply because he was still so used to yelling out the battle cry: "fight like a man". Of course, the semantics wouldn't be correct in reference to a digimon, and thus the variation "mon" was used.

For some reason though, he hadn't been expecting those yellow eyes when the wolf-like beast turned to him. He'd expected the diversion of attention; it was the whole point of the sound of his voice bouncing off the empty air particles that littered the plain, but he hadn't expected that shade. There was simply no way to describe it. It resembled his little brother's vomit at the best (and, being the elder brother, it generally fell to him to clean that up when their mother was unavailable). Some sort of dried out sickness that had been sucked from the life and vigour that made it shine with the sun's light.

But then the beast snarled, displaying large white canines, and turned away to sink its teeth into the other.

Apparently he wasn't much of a threat.

A gloved hand slipped into his pocket. It didn't matter; he wasn't about to let a wayward digimon, for whatever reason, hurt an innocent kid…or further hurt, as the boy was already and undeniably unconscious before that point in time.

'Execute, Spirit Evolution! Agunimon!'

The hyena ignored him, fangs almost sinking into the flesh of the other's shoulder…or neck. It was a little hard to tell from the angle, but the attempt was at least denied by a Pyro Tornado from the flame warrior.

The beast growled viciously at him, and then sprung again.

'Easy,' Agunimon tried, springing away from the incapacitated human and the canyon he had only just noticed. That, unfortunately, only left him two sides of the plain to utilise, and there was no element in the dry-baked and stagnant earth that was coming to his aid. The animal on the other hand has his paws poised to spring, a flat terrain which would only help his agility, and flat fur which would be almost invulnerable to his flame.

He really wished Bokomon was here as he Slide-Evolved into BurningGreymon when his Pyro Punches failed to accomplish anything. Then the white gnome could have told him a little about the digimon. It wasn't anything like fighting IceDevimon or Mercurymon…but he'd managed all right with them. He'd manage here as well.

Hopefully, Neemon was hiding behind a rock.

Ah, there he was. The yellow tips of his ears were just visible. That was good. He flapped his wings and took to the sky as the hyena lunged for him again; at least in the air he would have an advantage. Wolf-like creatures could not fly. Nor could he see any semblance tothose bullies that had bugged Simbar in The Lion King, an international classic he still admittedly enjoyed, even at eleven years of age. The stalk seemed somewhat familiar, but it was not the stalk of stupid cowards who risked only the hunting of dead meat. This one was hungry for a _fresh_ feast, and it was only slightly indiscriminatory between him and the unconscious stranger, for even so high up in the air, the yellow eyes followed him.

He shot a barrage of fire down to earth, and the hyena easily dodged it all, driving slowly, and surely Takuya realised, both towards the undermined victim and the canyon. He'd hazard a guess it would be the boy, as the canyon would only put the earth-dweller at a disadvantage.

He hadn't been expecting the yellow acid-like substance that sprayed from the other's mouth to hit his wings and drive him down. A few drops had seared through the tendons; by all means he should have still been incapable of flying further, if perhaps a little closer to the ground, but the burning had spread albeit without pain to cause a numbing paralysis that left the dead weight hanging off his back as his knees hit the dust.

He readied his blasters as the other scowled at him again, claws shining. And then protein clashed against metal as the blasters were reduced to battering rams keeping his face (or the rest of his form) from being ripped apart to threads.

'What happened to the whole "why I want to fight or why you don't deserve the spirits" speech?' the warrior of flame wondered aloud, failing to force himself back upon his feet. If the other sprayed him again, he was going to have serious problems.

And then a light-bulb went off in his head and his tail swung forward, spinning with enough ferocity to raise the temperature of the air between them by a few degrees and enkindle a new flame. A tornado rose up around him and he let it loose, blowing the other away as he sprung again.

Takuya took the opportunity to stand, devolve, and run so his back was no longer to the canyon. But he'd succeeded in knocking the hyena down, and when the grey head did not appear above the crevice after a minute of waiting with baited breath, he went over to the other human as he began to stir.

'Hey,' he said, softly yet sharply as the digimon could appear again at any moment. 'Are you okay?'

The hand was the first thing to move, sprawled awkwardly in comparison to the rest of his body as if the boy had attempted to catch or grab something before his untimely sleep. The fingers twitched slightly, rising by mere millimetres as if attempting to reach and grasp a thing intangible before it flopped to the ground again and his eyelids slightly parted to reveal eyes both knew to be blue, although it was quite probable that neither had anticipated the shade.

'Am I dead?' The tone was hazy, almost dream-like, as if it were drifting on some grey plain the other could never hope to reach. Perhaps he was still caught in some dream-world; if the last thing he had seen was those jaws about to clamp down upon his flesh, no-one could really blame him.

'Nope,' Takuya responded cheerfully. 'You're very much alive. And you are okay, aren't you?'

The eyes widened slightly, focusing on his face as the vision sharpened, and the voice suddenly lost is dream-like quality for clarity…and something else.

'Why?' The tone was still soft however; there was no bite in it, although it was far from simple.

Brown eyes blinked. 'Why what?'

'Why do you care?'

The brunette blinked again. 'What do you mean?' he was genuinely other hadn't shifted from his position, nor had the eyes changed their focus, although they now stared at a spot on his shoulder rather than directly into his eyes. 'I couldn't just let that monster gobble you up-'

He broke off when the other broke into peals of laughter.

* * *

It was by no means an appropriate reaction, but the laughter bubbled out of him akin to how a volcano spewed out its ash. It was uncontrollable; it lashed anywhere there was space, latched onto any form it could and sizzled them, burnt their skin and left behind that ash. He was still somewhat numb; the remnants of his dark spirit still hummed on his skin, and he found himself grateful to that. It slowed the onslaught, if nothing else. It let him push it away temporary, ignore it…even if he was going to have to face it all eventually now it seemed. And how he had wanted to avoid that. It had been the whole reason for accepting the spirits of darkness, and now they were torn from him. It was the whole reason for becoming Cherubimon's servant…and now he had been abandoned by him for, perhaps, one final task. Perhaps that was why the warrior of flame had spared him. Fate intended him to fulfil life's debt.

The brunette's expression became more bemused as he pushed himself away from the other and easily sat up.

It was quite obvious that he was perfectly fine, and the only answer for that was that the warrior of flame had saved him. Saved _him_ at the cost of fighting his friend, and in complete and utter ignorance.

'Umm…what's so funny?'

The yellow rabbit – Neemon was it? – had far more sense, hiding still behind his rock.

'You're the warrior of flame.' His tone held none of the amusement as the laughter died; there was nothing humorous about the situation. At best it was a hysterical reaction, one of releasing shock and building up a mask, and his features settled into a neutral expression that betrayed nothing. His voice did the same, but his eyes, as always the traitor, betrayed him in reflecting the mist, the reeling uncertainty, and the tumbler of emotions upon each other. Things he had no choice how, it appeared, but to deal with…and he should have dealt with them sooner, because he heard the monster that was the warrior of light roar in his canyon, the warped beast spirit, and he saw how close he had come to becoming that very creature driven only by the urge for destruction. The ground trembled beneath and around them; the canyon walls were collapsing. It didn't matter if it was man or nature that stood against the other, it would fall.

'Well, yeah but…' The brunette blinked a third time. 'How do you know?'

'You fought your own friend to save your enemy.' The words were calm, and he turned his face away so the other could not see his expression.

'I-what?'

The dumfounded expression really was amusing, but he wasn't in any mood to enjoy that.

'I don't know what you're talking about.' Apparently, the other hadn't gotten it yet. 'But friend or no – and I do not recognise that digimon at all FYI – he was about to _kill_ you.'

'And how is that any different to the way you scan digimon into your D-tectors?'

'We purify their eggs and they are reborn in primary village.' The warrior of flame was starting to sound a little exasperated. 'Gobbling up data won't do that, and besides, we don't even know if humans are reborn or not.'

The dark haired boy, once Duskmon, was silent to that.

'Hey, you mind explaining that whole friend and – watch out!'

The brunette knocked them both down as the hyena sprung over them. The pair rolled in the dust, the former coughing, before he straightened and went for his D-tector again. 'I think I need Aldamon here,' he muttered to himself, before turning to the other. 'You, whoever you are, just get out of here unless you have a spirit.'

The guy really was naïve.

'Are you really that naïve?' The question was almost rhetorical, but there was something deeper buried within it. Why was the other so _normal_? Couldn't he feel _anything_?

'I'm a little busy trying to figure out why those eyes seem familiar,' the fusion-evolved warrior of flame returned.

Apparently he wasn't so blind after all.

The hyena growled at the pair. 'Pain must go.'

They were the first words spoken by him, and they were filled with nothing but hunger and a lust for destruction.

'Huh?' Takuya blinked, and for a moment the yellow shimmered into blue before returning to their sickening hue. 'Dammit, it's just at the tip of my tongue-' He broke off as he was forced to duck another spray of white. It splattered slightly on the other as it flew above his head, but he simply raised a hand to it with an odd expression as the feeling of paralysis it left behind easily faded.

'You are beyond saving,' the beast growled, suddenly diving over Takuya and towards the human. Blue eyes met yellow and the expression set; undeniably, those words angered him, and he dove to the side to avoid the beast, springing into a soft stance which let him maneuver his way around the lunges with the proficiency a human could manage. It came from his training as Duskmon: the dark void that had needed to be filled.

And then Aldamon was cutting in again, preparing a large solar ball to throw at the other.

The pair froze: both light and dark. In the hyena's eyes, the red grew to eclipse the yellow pupils so it was the crimson hue alone that reflected in the whites of his warrior of darkness was a different matter; he was suddenly casting aside the barrier he had built. He remembered a similar burst of red energy, the human child, kneeling on the ground as blades readied themselves to cut his life. The naked, pathetic form, crying out in pain and regret, willing it all to vanish as the faces of three people, two female and a male, swarmed between them both.

Faces he had not understood, but somehow intuitively recognised. And those faces were flickering in his vision again, pushing against barriers in his mind which were all of his own making…

And then he was screaming again, clutching his head and stumbling back as tremors wracked his frail form, knees hitting the ground to salvage some extra support.

The red orb vanished.

'Hey, are you okay?'

The hyena growled. The other didn't answer, still clutching his head even as the scream stopped.

'I'm sorry.' Why was he apologizing? Stupid naïve kid who thought he could make the world right and just wound up making bad people feel worse. Why? The other hadn't answered and he still did not understand.

And then he was face to face with those yellow eyes again. Tears bared, saliva stemming from the jaws that could easily close around his head and rip the bone-encased viscera from the neck and the body it controlled…He trembled still; a mix of coping mechanisms, terror and _horror_ – he couldn't help but wonder if this was what he would have become if Cherubimon had given him his beast spirit.

The yellow eyes somewhat swam in his peripheral vision, blurring faintly so the glow of their edges was dulled as if someone had rubbed an eraser over the sharp lines to lighten them. It was the sort of moment where epiphanies descended from the heaven – even if the timing wasn't exactly appropriate, judging from the sharpened and extended claws as well as the protracted jaw – and argued with a voice in his mind that would have seem entirely rational up till that point.

He shivered again, but it was far from feeling the chill in the air. The hyena's breath was warm. He had no façade, no defence; the one he had before was slipping away like honey, leaving a bitter taste behind. There was no halting in those steps as the paws; this beast evidently had no problem in killing him or, if the look in those eyes could be correctly classified as hunger, eating him.

Gone beyond redemption. That was what the other had said. That yellow was oh-so-familiar; his Grandmother had been regurgitating bile of that exact shade for days before she had finally succumbed to death and the illness that gripped her worn body. It was no illness the doctors had recognised; they said she was simply dying of old age.

It was so easy for him to forget the rationale that he had so easily accepted in that dark and lonely place. How could he have? Was he that weak to give up when things got a little tough; hadn't he just established at that point that he _wasn't_ dead?

But it had felt that way, drifting and floating in a haze of memories until he had pretty much fallen onto Cherubimon's lap, so essentially the Celestial Digimon had saved his life, perhaps plucking him from the river of death. If that was not the case, he had essentially saved his sanity; he'd been a mess by that point. Perhaps that was why it had been so easy to give up all emotion, embrace that numbing cold that washed over him and all the consequences that came with it, allowing his soul to be consumed by the darkness…

But some power had proven greater, ultimately. He _would_ have classed it as light; the warrior of light was the twin brother he'd been, for ages, working up the words and the courage to meet, the one who'd caused him pain lost in a blanket of apathy, but it was somewhat difficult to enunciate that when the same warrior of light was in front of him, and in a condition far worse than he had ever been. Perhaps it was the difference between the human and beast spirit. Perhaps it was the difference between light and darkness. But he knew somehow, intuitively, that his mind would have been in a far worse condition, and probably not working in any reasonable manner, if it wasn't Koji Minamoto, the warrior of light, devoured by this hyena.

The other lunged and he sprung away lightly, toes barely skimming the earth as he sprung and sprung again, forever back. The paws pressed relentlessly forward, the hind-legs stayed taut, stalking their prey, but he backed away, teeth lightly gritted, heart thumping within his chest. The other continued backing away slowly, like a prey being pushed against a wall…but it wasn't a wall his foot hit in the end. It was the edge of the broken crevice, the rock tumbling to the ground beneath him.

The yellow eyes met blue again, but there was nothing. No faltering of steps. No spark of recognition. Here was what he had wanted to be. The very idea was horrendous now; it frightened him. It repulsed him.

And it was his fault. Never mind it was probably Cherubimon who had reached out and snatched the other; Cherubimon hadn't told him to eliminate the Child of Light. He had only said to eliminate the source of pain. All he had needed to do was talk. But no, he'd chosen the coward's way and ultimately come to this.

The flame warrior really should have let the other eat him. It was no less than he deserved, but his body wouldn't allow such a betrayal from his mind.

He took a very careful step back.

* * *

Aldamon was seriously lost. What the heck was wrong with that kid? And how was he dodging like that? It almost reminded him of Koji, only his movements seemed more…fluid, and more tentative. But it also meant he couldn't get a clear shot…and what was with stopping him and screaming like that too?

He really didn't like having answers, and not only because it stopped him from paying attention to the finer details of the situation. Particularly the ground slipping into the warped crevice, where the unnamed boy, the "other Koji" was about to step off into.

And he was supposed to be looking for Koji too. Perhaps that was why he shouted Koji's name.

The person he had been shouting to reacted. The being who owned the name did not, but the hyena did spring, diving into the crevice…and then the ground trembled viciously and the sound of rocks raining down was heard.

The fusion-evolved warrior of flame flew to the point (his wings were fine; it was a problem that had faded with his beast digivolution)…only to blink in surprise at the boy clinging to the edge, struggling to get up.

'I've got you,' Takuya said, easily picking the other up and setting him on firm ground again, before blinking at the look he received. 'What? You're looking at me like I'm an alien.'

'Hmm…' The boy bit his lip and remained silent, before whispering in a seemingly unrelated train of thought: 'He didn't even react…'

'Okay.' The brunette devolved again after sparing a quick peek at the crevice. No doubt the other would make his way out again, but they could do with a talk until then. 'Now, explanation.'

He tried to fold his arms and look intimidating, but gave up on it as the other's expression slipped into a mask again.

'Okay,' he repeated when the other didn't say anything. 'Let's start with who you are.'

The name might have been a better question to ask. He only realised that though when he received the answer.

'I'm Duskmon.'

He's _what_? Cue an internal gasp.

* * *

The brunette was gaping at him; he knew it without even having to look. It was just one of those uncanny abilities he possessed. He couldn't blame the other though; he'd just admitted what he was.

'You're…Duskmon?' The tone sounded shocked, but there was something else underneath. 'But-how-hey, that's so cool.'

_What? Did he just say "cool"?_

'That's another warrior on our side. But…how'd you wind up as one of Cherubimon's warriors anyway?'

His lips were slightly parted: another shocked reflex. Whatever he had been expecting, that had not been it. How easily the other assumed it was all as simple as taking sides, and turning over to "good" and that would be the end of it. He wished at that point – he really did – that he had that luxury too.

'It's not like that at all,' he mumbled, half to himself and in a tone that bordered many things, including shame and irritation. To an outsider, it probably sounded flat, 'That's not important right now though. Why are you bothering at me when your best friend is down there?'

Why wasn't he bothering when it was his brother? Oh yeah, because it was mostly his fault to begin with. And he'd gone and let the guy into a trap instead of helping him. Part of him decided that either outcome of that: more docile or more aggravated, would only be advantageous. If it was the former, perhaps reason would reach his ears. If it was the latter, he'd soon wear himself out and be left with no choice _but_ to listen.

'My best friend-Koji!' The last word came out as a yelp. 'Damn, and I was supposed to be looking for him too.' There was a pause as the pieces of the puzzle visibly fell into place. 'Hold on. You said you were Duskmon. You two were fighting in Sakkakumon, and then something happened and we couldn't see you two anymore. Now you're here as a human, and Koji's-' His eyes widened as he stared into the crevice, and then he cursed. 'What the hell happened?'

Then the eyes narrowed and he grabbed the other's shirt in a semi-restraint. 'What the hell happened?' he repeated.

If it had been any other situation, he would have been in pieces, but there was something strangely comforting, strangely tying, about the fact that the other had made the same choice at him. The same mistake.

'He chose apathy over pain.'

The brunette let him go. 'Sorry,' he apologised, a little awkwardly. 'Shouldn't have grabbed you like that. Not that you would have seriously hurt Koji anyway, after all…' His voice trailed off as they both remembered the ending of their second encounter. 'Are you on our side now?'

'No,' the other responded flatly.

'Oh…' Evidently, he wasn't sure how to act to that. 'Well, truce then?'

He held out a hand to shake, and the blue eyes stared oddly at it.

'Hey, come on. No reason to fight. Right?'

He took it, if somewhat hesitantly. It wasn't like he was planning on fighting…or could fight without the spirit of darkness for that matter. Before any of that, he needed to find his footing.

'Now, what was that thing about apathy and pain?'

He explained it as succinctly and emotionlessly as possible. It _was_ rather easy to see the whole picture when the pieces fall into place.

* * *

'So that's what happened with you too,' Takuya murmured to himself, before nodding. 'Great. Now we just have to snap Koji out of it, and then go rescue Ophanimon.'

He sounded rather cheerful, all things considered…until he turned around and saw those yellow eyes again, letting a small "eep" escape before he collected himself.

'Hey Koji!' he shouted. 'Stop being an idiot and listen!'

The hyena snarled at him before springing, causing him to stumble and fall.

'I'm guessing he doesn't recognise me,' the warrior of flame muttered to himself, before raising his voice. 'Koji, it's me! Takuya!'

Nothing. The yellow eyes simply narrowed at him before he made to pounce again…until the other boy cut him off.

'Coward!'

Two pairs of eyes turned to him, the animal snarling.

'What did you say?'

'I called you a coward,' the other repeated, although calmly was perhaps the wrong word to describe the tone. 'You're about to strike down a person who cannot defend themselves, and that simply because he was trying to help you.'

Wasn't the brightest thing to say, but he had to distract the other _somehow_.

'Yeah,' Takuya agreed, straightening up and brushing himself off, again somewhat unwisely. 'You never strike down an unarmed opponent, remember?'

The shaggy grey head turned to him again, snarling viciously, before lunging…and stumbling in its step.

'You're not a coward, but you're acting like one right now,' Takuya continued. 'Seriously. Since when do you give up? You'd have bashed my head in if it were me, and you'd think you'd have more sense after seeing him!' He pointed at the other human, and the yellow eyes turned that way and bled…something.

And then the hyena sprung towards the other and he sprung away with the agility of a cat, somehow landing on his feet.

'Whoops? Did I say something wrong?'

The paws slashed uselessly in the air.

'It's just going to hurt worse in the end.'

The silent admission hit its mark and the hyena made one more useless slash before rearing upon its hind legs and howling. The cry echoed across the horizon, and then the boy-turned-beast had turned into a blur and vanished.

'Where-where'd he go?'

'The Rose Morning Star,' the other replied, taking a step in the same direction before stopping at the whistle of a Trailmon and a cry.

'Hey!' There was the rest of the gang, and Bokomon, waving.

* * *

It took a bit of explaining to get everyone onto the right page, and then they all stared blankly at the boy who looked so much like Koji.

'So that kid used to be Duskmon,' JP muttered. 'And now Koji's got bat-crazy and this guy's somewhere in between on our side and who knows where.'

'That pretty much sums it up,' Takuya replied.

'He could be lying.'

'Considering he almost got eaten more times than I can count,' the warrior of flame shot back. 'I highly doubt that.'

'He might be right,' Zoe agreed. 'It's probably hard to lie in the face of danger like that, and he looks so sad too.'

Bokomon was still flicking though his book, looking for a reference.

'Nothing,' he replied, slamming it shut. 'And there's nothing on Duskmon here either. The warrior of darkness, according to this, is a digimon called Lowemon. Apparently somehow Cherubimon warped the spirits of darkness, and now he has done the same with Koji's ones.'

'So we just need to scan the spirits and purify them?' Tommy asked, before his expression fell. 'We'll have to fight him then.'

'I don't think we have a choice.' Takuya spared a glance at the other boy, before hailing him. 'Hey…hey. You never told us your name.'

The other didn't turn towards them, staring at the lights that were the Rose Morning Star. 'It's Koichi,' he said finally, and quietly. 'Koichi Kimura.'

'Right. Koichi.' Takuya repeated the name, before continuing. 'Do you know how to get into the Rose Morning Star and where Ophanimon is being held?'

'Angler knows,' JP intervened. 'Takuya, what are you-'

'I have no idea,' the Trailmon responded. 'I just know how to get to the general area. I've heard the place is a labyrinth, so a guide would be advisable.'

'You could have mentioned that before,' the oldest of the group muttered to himself.

There was a moment of silence before Koichi responded at last. 'I do, but you'll all be walking into a trap.'

They exchanged glances, before shrugging. 'Trap or not, we've got two reasons now to go there,' Takuya pointed out.'Unless that hyena comes back, and I'm not sticking around here to find out. And there's still Ophanimon.'

There was more silence as the boy thought on it.

'You do kind of owe me,' the fiery brunette pointed out cheerfully. 'For saving your life and all.'

After all, Koji had pretty much said the reverse to him.

'I do,' the other agreed finally, and quietly yet with a hint of firmness buried underneath. 'But this won't be a repayment of that debt. Cherubimon wants you all there…so if anything, this is repaying his.' The last part was said barely over a whisper.

'Debt?' JP questioned, although they had all been thinking it.

'He saved my life,' Koichi replied in the same invariable tone, giving no explanation thereafter.

'And along the way, could you tell us why you look like Koji and why you were so obsessed with him?'

'JP!' Zoe exclaimed.

'What?' the other defended. 'I was curious.'

The question had somewhat sealed the deal though. After all, Takuya was right. It didn't matter if it was a trap. It didn't matter if their guide led them astray. It didn't matter who that boy was, or what thoughts were going through his mind, particularly those he chose not to share. They had to get into the Rose Morning Star. They had to save Ophanimon. And now, they also had to save Koji.

* * *

The darkness smelt cold. It felt warm though; perhaps it was due to the quality of his fur, sleeking across his back. His body had long since ceased its tremors, curling up as a dog did as it prepared for sleep. They were distant relatives after all: hyenas and dogs, so it was to be expected.

Cherubimon smirked as he raised his shadowed hands from the sleeping child of light. Darkness had unfortunately been a necessary casualty, and a small pang in his heart was felt as he remembered the pain of that boy bursting forth…but he could have done nothing more for him; the other would have simply continued to spiral in a paradigm of hatred and love for light, growing increasingly unstable. Who knew what the consequences of that could have been. And this way, he had a stronger hold on all then spirits. The warrior of light as an extra incentive..and he was sure the child of darkness would play the remainder of his part: the willing puppet to lead the ten spirits into his hands to be collected. Because he would remember himself lost, alone and in pain. And before everything else, he would remember the one who saved him from it.

He had been so docile too. He would miss that. But redealing and sacrifice was the way of the game, and he almost had the perfect hand to place down. Soon, the entire digital world would be his.

The hyena stirred slightly, and a ripple of pain echoed into the air; the last one. He'd somewhat underestimated the pair of fire and darkness. Particularly darkness; it had been a conundrum that had already once collapsed; he had been lucky Ophanimon's choice for light had been as such and he was able to rescue his plan.

And then the beast slunk again into the thralls of sleep, and the smirk could have been described as something tender as a heard long since covered in darkness strung a slightly different song. Just as it had as the warrior of darkness had slept in the same manner.

'Don't worry Haienamon,' he uttered. 'The pain is all gone now.'

The blanked yellow eyes opened.


	3. Emotion

**A/N:** And that's it. I can't believe I actually managed to finish this in three and a bit days. Seriously, its 17,360 words (yes, I counted; I was curious – that's without the dividers and A/Ns: fanfiction counts both). A busy and yet docile week at uni provided that opportunity; mind you I had pretty long hours this week for some reason (which was several weeks ago by the time I post this). Lectures collaborate even worse than teachers do.

The ending might seem a little odd, but remember they're still technically in the middle of a fight.

Thanks for sticking with. Hope you enjoy this conclusion. Rocked in my head, but I'm not too sure how it came out on paper.

* * *

_**Turning Towards Light**_

_Chapter 3 –Emotion_

No-one really knew what was going through the mind of Koichi Kimura, the once warped warrior of darkness that had so easily defeated them. No-one brought the topic up, and the other had simply told his own tale flatly before lapsing into the silence. His voice kept his secrets, but his body posture betrayed many things: guilt, uncertainty…there was even a degree of self-loathing there, but there were other things too. Pride for one, and an unusual quality as well, particularly when seen against its couples. There was definitely an element of courage too, but there must have also been something else, because neither of those things accounted for why _he_ was going to the Rose Morning Star before Takuya had (apparently wisely) asked for his guidance.

None of them really understood what he meant by debt; they supposed it was simply a circumstance they would have to experience for themselves before it made sense. They hadn't much to associate it with, except perhaps Takuya and his momentary journey back to the real world. The Dark Trailmon trip somewhat served as a more placate reincarnation of the circumstances of the boy they had learnt was Koji's twin brother.

In addition, they failed to understand what he meant when he had claimed he was "glad".

They also hovered between various degrees of belief. JP for one was rather reluctant to accept the tale; "It could so easily be a trick," he protested, and Koichi did not rebuke the statement. But it made a sublime degree of sense, once they considered the inability of Duskmon to strike down the warrior of light and the sudden tunnel-focus upon him. If anything, he should have gone after Takuya: the initial target he had failed to strike down. After all, he had cut through the flesh on Koji's back. He could have ignored it, but something had pulled him in. That something was the knowledge and the purpose that had, somehow, initially led him to this world. The purpose that, perhaps, prevented his soul from rest.

Zoe found the entire story really sad; the law was just that messed up to bring a cycle of events to this. Takuya had seen the most first-hand, and while he could be an idiot at times, he was no liar. They really didn't have a choice _but_ to believe that the beast warrior of life, the metallic wolf, had been warped into a man-eating hyena. He had not responded to the name, but he had to the finer details, albeit barely scraping the surface of the skin with a spontaneous verbal attack.

They'd have to do far better than that.

Tommy was watching Bokomon flip through his pages once again; each new search was as fruitless as the old. There was nothing on the hyena. Nothing on Duskmon, but at least they knew the name of the latter. Why hadn't they thought to look before? Not that it would have much of a difference, the young boy supposed. They didn't know what they were up again anyway. But he was confident. After all, they'd rescued him from his nightmare. They'd rescued Takuya from his beast spirit.

It was just the silent boy in front of him that unnerved him, enthralled in his own thoughts. He wondered if someone _had_ saved him too, whether it had been Koji ripping the spirits from his body or Takuya helping him…or if it was just a matter of removing a piece to simply replace it at a later date with the same consequences. It would be really sad if that was the consequence; now that they knew Duskmon was a human like them, it would be that much harder. But it would be harder still to fight Koji, who they all considered a friend.

Or perhaps not. It was that bond of friendship that had saved them in the initial circumstances. In that case, it was the battle the boy leading them was encased in was the hardest of them all. But perhaps Patamon, riding on his head, was helping the matter as a small smile was still present on his lips as he stopped, although it quickly slipped away into a neutral expression.

'We're here,' he said.

* * *

There were two guards, but getting past them had been pretty easy, all things considered. Too easy, some of them thought, before they were reminded by Koichi's earlier assertion that it was a trap.

'This Cherubimon really is overconfident,' Takuya said aloud as they passed through a labyrinth with mirrors hanging on its dark walls. He stopped to look at one, peering at his reflection before jumping back as a shadowed hand reached out to claw him. 'Err…'

'They're harmless,' Koichi said, and this time the guilt was definitey present in his voice.' They're digimon who were given the spirit of darkness, and it broke them.'

No-one really knew what to say to that. Of course, that didn't keep them from being silent. It was, apparently, a characteristic that most of their group shared...or rather, they all had at a certain time or circumstance.

'You're lucky then,' Zoe mused aloud, before covering her mouth as she realised it mightn't have been the best time to assert the fact.

'Yeah…' the other replied. 'I've been lucky with a lot of things.'

The tone sounded almost bitter, and Patamon fluttered into his arms as they continued walking.

Eventually, the came across a doorway, and then a room that burnt their eyes with its bright light.

'Where are we?' Tommy asked.

'Chamber of Light,' Koichi replied, shielding his eyes and wincing at the intensity. Even when he didn't possess his spirits, the chamber had a strain on his body.

'And why are we-oh!' JP exclaimed as he saw Patamon shoot out of the other's arms and fly towards a cage of light hanging from the ceiling. Inside, barely visible in the luminescence, was a beautiful angel that held a great degree of resemblance to Seraphimon.

'Children,' the angel uttered, her voice melodious and echoing gracefully upon the mirrors that surrounded them all. 'You have come at last.'

'Who is that?' Neemon asked.

Bokomon snapped his waist band. 'That's Lady Ophanimon,' he snapped back. 'One of the Three Celestial Digimon.'

Patamonsimply stared up at her in awe as the three with flying forms evolved to fly up. 'Hang on,' JP declared. 'We'll get you down.'

But the light reflected and stopped them all.

'You must not waste your time on me,' Ophanimon pleaded. 'There are more important matters you need to attend to, but before that I must explain why you all are here.'

It was a tale seven of them had heard before, albeit that of the initial six was variant from the seventh as the storytellers themselves were a significant part of the conflict. But the tale was quickly brought to the matters of the spirits, and particularly those of light and darkness.

'I know of this,' the blonde angel said, somewhat sorrowfully but with the air of being somewhat separate from the transpired events. Perhaps that additional coldness was necessary to bring children to a world that was not their own in order to save it, to put those extra lives at risk for their own salvation and watch the consequences that, while leading towards advantage, weren't always so. 'Seraphimon and I only possessed five of the ten spirits between us while Cherubimon held the other five. He used four of them and created his army of evil digimon and set them about pillaging our world, but the remaining spirit, the spirit of darkness, would not be subjected to the same action. Light and darkness hold the balance in our world you see; it is a thing of legend that no-one wholly understands, but the power of the legendary spirits only led to their corruption as Cherubimon failed to create or find a compatible host. But when I opened a channel to call upon your world for aid – a world where I had believed Cherubimon held no power and it was true at the time – the connection between the spirits of light and darkness allowed him to bring another child into this world, and this one _was_ compatible.'

Her blue eyes met another shade of blue at that moment before she continued on. 'Lost in the border between life and death, anyone would be easily seduced by the thrall of apathy, but what is important is that you turned away from it.'

Koichi turned his face slightly away. Evidently he did not believe that, or at the very least held some doubt to the statement.

'You realised that the blanket in which you had wrapped yourself would not ultimately bring you the comfort you desired and so you unconsciously cast it aside,' the angel explained. 'In doing so, you opened your mind and my power, restrained as it was, was able to reach you and restore your memories. Alas I tried to reach the warrior of light inside that beast of steel, as did Seraphimon's essence, but we both failed in that account. All is not lost however.' Now, she spoke to all of them again, turning from the warrior of darkness who mulled over her words. 'Your strength and courage has far surpassed any expectations that may have been placed upon you. All of you. I know it won't fail you here.'

'That's right,' Takuya agreed, slamming his right fist into his open left palm. 'We're going to restore peace to this world.'

'Yeah,' everyone agreed…except Koichi.

'Now would be a good time to tell us which side you're on,' JP said to him, a tad pointedly.

'JP!' the rest scolded.

'What? You're all thinking it. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut in the future, then someone else can say it.' Or no-one perhaps, in which case the curiosity would be left unquenched.

Zoe gave him a scathing look, before reconsidering. 'You do bring up a fair point,' she admitted. 'But you really need to watch how you say it.'

'Um…guys?' Tommy looked up at Ophanimon, whose expression had somewhat dimmed, before back to the humans. 'Is this really the time for this?'

'Yes it is.' Funnily, it was Koichi who replied. One would think he would be the one avoiding the question. But he was biting his lip slightly.

Admittedly, he had given the matter quite a bit of thought. It was partially the reason for his silence; there was, of course, many other factors to consider as well: he had been Duskmon, he didn't belong as a part of this group…and the list went on.

'I'm on no-one's side,' he said finally, turning his head down so he didn't have to meet anyone's eyes. 'Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody _has_ made mistakes. I can't just pick a side like that.'

Takuya opened his mouth, but surprisingly JP shrugged. 'Fair enough.'

'JP,' the other brunette protested. 'Are you crazy?'

'Look,' the elder replied, a little exasperated. 'I wouldn't trust a guy who doesn't believe for what he's fighting for the distance I can throw them, and I'm perfectly serious when I say that. The fact that he admitted that means he can be trusted when he chooses to say: I'm on this side or that. But persuading or forcing someone to be on a side or to chose isn't going to help in the long run. They're the ones who aren't dedicated, and they turn out to be the ones you can't trust.'

'My, those are quite wise words,' Bokomon said, opening his book to a blank page and scrawling it down.

'It works in both sides of the coin,' Ophanimon continued, causing them all to look up and the "wise" speaker to blush slightly when he remembered the remainder of his audience. It was much easier when the listener wasn't a tall and strikingly beautiful angel with enormous power…even if she was currently captive. 'Cherubimon always was afraid he'd lose control over the spirits of darkness. In part it attributed to the extra care he took in shaping his warrior and the dismissal when he realised his fallacy.'

'Does that mean the same thing applies with Koji?' Tommy asked, blinking slightly. 'That should make things a little easier, right?'

'I'm afraid I do not know.' And again, her voice sounded distantly regretful. 'I fail to see the purpose of such an act to be honest.'

'Why?' This time it was Takuya, accidently cutting Zoe off as she opened her mouth.

'Because the spirits of the ten legendary warriors are now within my grasp,' the corrupted Celestial Digimon himself replied, staring down upon them from the ceiling, somehow stifling the gasps that echoed all around as Ophanimon (and all of them really) looked up in shock. None of them had seen or heard him, nor did they understand how he could be up there when it defied the laws of gravity (except Koichi, who knew well enough the real Cherubimon wouldn't grace his presence where a projection would do).

The large eyes passed over Ophanimon first as she gracefully shrank back in her cage. 'It is fruitless after all, the large warped bunny said in an almost soft tone. 'If you join me now, we can share this new utopia.'

'Never,' the female replied strongly. 'You once told us chaos is the world's natural way. You cannot impose your will upon it, nor will you succeed in banishing pain and suffering when an equal amount of happiness and growth stems from it. It is a balance you cannot change.'

'Silence!' the other thundered, and Patamon flew into his Papamon's pouch as the two rookies quaked as well. 'Then you will perish with the rest.' But then the scowl turned upwards into a smirk, and he looked down upon the humans who stared up at him. On the ground, they looked and felt so small in comparison. 'But first I will have your spirits.'

There was a chorus of protest…again except for Koichi, this time for the reason that he was lacking his spirit. But then there was a snarl from somewhere within the room, and it was Koichi shouting something…although his words got lost in the growl. The meaning carried, particularly since the dark haired boy tackled Takuya down as the hyena, who had arrived while their attention had been diverted, landed neatly before them.

The next moment, he was leaping for Takuya again, but this time he had enough bearings to roll out of the way.

'What the heck are you doing Koji?' he yelled, narrowly missing the claws that swiped at him.

'You cause pain,' the other growled, somewhat fragmentally. 'You must go.'

'Hey,' the other protested, wincing slightly as the claws managed to cut a thin line into his arm. 'I didn't start this, remember?'

The hyena turned slightly, then changed his target to the dark-haired boy…who fared a little better when it came to avoiding the claws. Perhaps it had something to do with his training as Duskmon.

'Stop this!' Ophanimon cried.

'I will have the spirits,' Cherubimon responded, and lightning began to crash down upon the digidestined.

'Well, we're not going to stand here and let that happen,' the warrior of flame shouted up, pulling out his D-tector. 'Let's go guys.'

The others followed suit and they began their attempt to claw down the corrupted Celestial Digimon.

* * *

The chamber of light had suddenly turned into a warzone, full with flashes and bangs and wayward attacks reflecting off the mirrors and intense light waves. On top of that, the thunder was raining down about them too, and it was due to luck alone that he had not been zapped…although the hyena had and seemed no worse for it.

And he couldn't hear himself think, so there was no way there'd be any talking involved. And what other weapon did he have when the other had scanned his spirits?

The only option was to abandon the chamber of light and the war and choose a more advantageous location. In any case, it was like he said: he wasn't on anyone's side because everyone made mistakes. With this fight, he would choose his side, and if he couldn't, he would wait and go on till the opportunity presented itself.

Which was how they wound up in the labyrinth, and how they'd managed to break enough mirrors between them to earn more than two lifetimes worth of bad luck before he was groaning slightly from the stinging in his back as he lay amongst the shards he had been shoved against…and the hyena panted in front of him.

That was one good thing about those sorts of hunter digimon…or rather the animals they took after. They tired rather easily.

'Why…fight…' the hyena panted. One could not call him KendoGarrurumon; he looked nothing like his predecessor. One could also not call him Koji; he was far from human, even if the separate identities did theoretically converge into a single being and that being could be summarised under the name of Koji.

It wasn't until the other managed to crawl to his knees that he registered the half-formulated question. 'Excuse me?' he asked, blinking…then cringing at the look he received. It looked so familiar; he could swear he'd stared into a mirror and seen that exact gaze in his reflection. True, the eyes were yellow instead of red, or even blue, but he remembered that gaze reflecting off the carmine surface of his blade. When he had wondered (or perhaps wondered was too docile a word) why the other's face had affected him so much. When he wondered why the other succeeded in disturbing his concentration. Soon thereafter he had persisted in finding out the reason, and that had led to their encounter inside Sakkakumon.

'Pain…too much pain…' the digimon groaned, and he really did sound like he was hurting amongst the tiredness. Perhaps it was simply tightness in his chest. Perhaps not, but the fact of the matter was that he was in agony. 'Why..?'

The question still didn't make a whole lot of sense, but it was at least more coherent than it had been before.

'You can't stop it,' the human answered eventually. 'I've tried. You're trying now. Both of us know it's not possible; it's just that much more painful in the end.'

He was on his feet by then, prepared to start backing away if need be.

'Wrong!' the beast shouted, lunging and the other dodged back. It was lucky his sneakers were new; they'd had to buy a new pair when the old ones simply could not forge on any further. But if they had been the more worn pair, his soles would probably be bleeding. Actually, he'd been scratched a couple of times, and the claws had even caught his face and yet he was blood-free.

It wasn't a fact he was going to think about though. He was occupied with not getting himself killed. It was remarkable how it cleared the muddle thoughts that took comfort in a person's brain. He didn't have the time to feel guilty or sorry for himself because all that impeded on the current situation. The mess that had been his feelings on the situation took shape: yes, he did feel guilty. Yes, he was feeling rather low…but it helped quite a bit to see someone else making the same mistake and being in the same situation. Despite how sadistic it was, despite the fact the other was his _brother_…it was a human instinct that could not be denied. Of course, he felt guilty about the thought as well, but the cause far outweighed the effect. It somewhat justified his own choice; it wasn't a matter of his particular weakness as he could have so easily believed if the circumstances were any different. It was a weakness of humankind, and their susceptibility to pain.

He backed into a different chamber, this one with a single orb glowing in the centre of a square tiled with a mosaic of white and black. It was only until he was against the statute that held the orb to his chest level that he realised the pattern was actually the symbol of darkness repeating itself over and over in a tandem.

It was when that point registered that he realised what the sphere was. The warped beast of light cringing away only served to validate that.

It was the beast spirit of darkness. It had to be. And the room they were in was the holding chamber, where once the human spirits too had resided.

The hyena had resorted to pacing slightly, as if stalking his prey. They both knew there were only two options: either take up a spirit warped beyond belief or to back out of the protective circle and continue the little dance they had engaged themselves in. And the beast also knew that he was human, and would fall to human weakness far faster than any man-eating animal…even if the animal would be the first to tire. It was the hunger for meat and desire for death guised as the elimination of all causative agents of pain that would push him until the blood was seeping through his jaws. It was almost reminiscent of a fictional vampire in a way; perhaps that was where the creators had gotten the inspiration thereof, past the bat that had lead to the blood-sucking name.

Behind the other, the spirit flared. It was almost as if it detected the affinity, and was reaching for him. The instinct was to move, either towards it and seize up the thing that completed his soul or cringe away from the same thing, one that would possibly warp his mind and obliterate his heart till he was worse than the lost beast before him.

It looked like such a simple solution from that perspective. Obliterate pain. Never feel it again. But it was impossible. They were human, ultimately. They were forever searching.

Even now, even though it had simply been fight after fight with little recovery time in between, the hyena was shifting his head this way and that, sniffing, as if he was searching for something. Animals, particularly of the canine heritage, searched by their noses as opposed to their eyes.

Koichi sincerely hoped the smell of fear on him would not incite the other. He wasn't about to go denying to himself that he wasn't scared…because he was. And he was, in essence, stuck between a hammer and an anvil.

C'mon, he shouted at himself. Think.

The yellow eyes stared at him and he resisted the urge to gulp, gritting his teeth instead. Freaking out here wasn't going to help anyone. The others were still busy with Cherubimon, otherwise they would have come to help their friend…

And he was thinking, and perhaps even worrying, about them. He was fairly sure the five didn't stand all that much of a chance against even a projection of Cherubimon. He was made from the shadow. Only the true darkness, the thing that made the shadows, could defeat it. Unless the light could shine even stronger than that. Or that's how the legend went anyway; it was one of the secrets of the chamber. There was a lot more on this true darkness too: its fusion with the true light was what sealed Lucemon long ago. It was once the bane of the creation of the universe. But there was no explanation. He doubted it had anything to do with the spirits; why would they be kept _there_ of all places otherwise?

Heh, apparently he had made a choice after all. And it seemed like it had been long made: when those eyes, the colour of sickness, had first looked at him in fact. It was almost ironic to think it had been a situation when their roles had been reversed that had succeeded in freeing him from his self-enacted cage.

Of course, a re-enactment would only work if he used the spirit behind him. His human one was out of his reach. But he could feel the taint; apparently he still held quite an affinity to darkness. It rolled off his skin in waves, almost like the heat from a stove blasted too high, burning without the beads of perspiration crawling down one's skin and providing relief.

The hyena growled, but it was far from impatience. No doubt he felt the darkness too, just as _he_ had felt the light from the light chamber. It hadn't been so bad, but as Duskmon it had been the equivalent of a rather bad migraine. If digimon could vomit, he would have regurgitated his entire stomach contents more than once. Fortunately, they couldn't. The smell was just as bad as anything else, even if it didn't cause him to lapse into a cascade effect. It was remarkable how people simply assumed he couldn't stomach the smell, or the sight of blood, or some particularly gory scene from a horror clip. He liked none of those things, but he wasn't the one screaming or clinging to another at the sight of them.

'Move.' The command was…tethering almost, but pleading. Definitely pleading, albeit it was forced. It sounded like the speaker was unused to reducing (or elevating depending on the perspective) himself to such statuses.

'Why?' the human returned, attempting to keep his tone from shaking but ultimately failing. It didn't matter though; fear in tone wasn't about to make more of an impact than fear in scent. In any case, it was futile to pretend to be brave when the body was the quickest to betray…and in particular the eyes. But he had to see. He had to look.

'Move.' The tandem was repeated.

'You can't tell me why, can you?' Koichi's mind grappled for a hook, a clue…could he convince the other with the power of words alone, even knowing that as one of his greatest weaknesses? The growl became more dangerous as the thought crossed his mind. More menacing. He was really trying the other's patience, but he pressed on anyway. He hadn't left himself much choice; the spirit behind him was little option as it oozed with corruption…

…but somehow he had imagined it to feel a lot worse than it did.

Eyes flickering slightly, he half turned towards it, before a third growl, this one insistent, broke in and he looked back to his bane, his current adversary, as the other spewed the yellow liquid in his direction.

He ducked with a reflexive shriek, covering his head with his arms as the support toppled to the ground with a resounding crash. The sound echoed off the tiles and the tall sloping walls, almost like the chime of a bell winding down from the twelfth hour. The sphere toppled from its pedestal, tumbling to the ground along with the broken marble and coming to a rest by his foot. It was almost nudging him. Tempting him. Asking him.

No, not now…

'You can't escape it.' The hyena was slowly backing away; he had started when the marble slumped upon its weight, but the movement had slowed since, becoming harder to spot. It was only because the beast warrior consumed most of his focus that he was able to notice it still. 'You can never hope to escape all the negativities of the world, because then there wouldn't be anything good about it. Remember what Cherubimon said to me: "Rid this world of evil, and you'll never have to suffer again." Remember what you said in reply: "It's not true."'

The other was certainly blunter than him.

There was a hesitant pause, and then the monster growled, somewhat brokenly: 'I…said that?'

'Yes, you did.'

Another pause.

'You lie!' And the human flinched back from the growl that erupted from the hyena's throat. 'Hate pain.'

'Everyone hates pain.' The sphere was digging into his foot now. It was insistent…and there was something a little different about it. A little more calming.

And then the hyena sprung with a fury he could not understand nor counter; everyone was different, but they were the same in that they attempted to avoid pain, and should that fail, deny it. And no-body liked to admit they were wrong. Humanity was created with those errors. Or perhaps those facets for improvement.

The spirit by his feet winked at him as he fell upon it; it was either that or bleed from punctures courtesy from the splintered marble. The beast wrapped within trilled at him: a mix of raw power. It was almost as if there were two tangible aspects to it: the power he had possessed before it had been ripped away…and it was curling away from him as if he had gone at it with a hot iron, and a different sort of darkness that was softer, warmer, and more reassuring.

The darkness that cloaked and hid and shut away, and the darkness that protected and comforted and utilised to create, reshape or destroy. A darkness that didn't have to be evil if it wasn't the owner's hand that stayed it to that path – and that was exactly what Patamon had said, the wise guy – but simply an element, a force, that possessed only the potential that another gave it.

Light did not exist where there was no darkness. And the deeper the darkness, the stronger the light would shine. He wasn't sure where he had heard that – sounded like something out of a fantasy novel, but he had to get the spirits of light away, if only for a little while. And he had to believe in the path he had chosen for himself, that he wasn't going to drown himself in apathy again.

Once more he found himself guiltily glad that the other had followed him down that dark path. It made it easier to look towards the light.

His right hand suddenly shone, and a D-tector appeared. Like the other models, but black and grey, and currently empty.

But not for long as the beast spirit beneath him lit up as well. There was a roar, somewhat distant…but then the entire human form was glowing in fractal code…and evolving.

* * *

He could have sworn he saw an eagle at some stage, but he had to admit that the lion beast form was…comfortable. Barring the imagery, it fit him like a glove. The symbolism…was somewhat questionable.

The warped beast of light didn't even look taken aback. A new look had entered his eyes; the other wondered for a moment if he had done the opposite to his intentions…but things had to get worse before they got better, or so the saying went. And now he had a way of taking the spirits…and accomplishing something without running away.

He lay flat as the other sprung, letting the man-eater fly over his head. The irony was not lost on him: the male lions did not hunt; they only got the first share of the pickings. The hyena, while spotted ones were known to hunt for themselves, were typically scavengers. They could have been fighting for a carcass. They were, in a sublime sense. A carcass called apathy…or perhaps it was called emotion.

It didn't really matter. A black orb of darkness collided with the beast mid-air and knocked him down.

A single Ebony Blast wasn't going to do it. Nor was a single spray from the nameless attack which he quickly pounced like the remnant feline to avoid. The game had become far more dangerous, but his purpose, ultimately was stronger. Apathy carried nothing else; emotion carried faith, it carried reason. It encompassed the entire world: the good and the bad. It rose, it slumped…he hoped it was a peak, where it backed him up instead of tossing him headlong into a raging river.

After all, he'd already had that once.

But finally, his jaw enclosed around something hot, like tea fresh off the stove. It somewhat scalded his throat, soothing it, wiping away the red…and then he realised what it was. His human spirit, but it was free of corruption, free of taint. The warrior of light had purified it.

But how?

Brown eyes met yellow…and then he mentally slapped himself for not realising sooner. Light and darkness. Darkness and light. If the other could purge his spirits without them going through the D-tector, then he could do the same.

He sprung again, barely giving the other time to scream. This time, the jaws enclosed around something that froze his jaw worse than dousing it into ice. But lions were also known for their stubbornness…or maybe it was him.

* * *

Koichi wondered if the situation would have been more or less awkward if the cascade of events hadn't taken place. Koji was on his knees, and not quite meeting his eyes. He still possessed his human spirit, but whether it would cause a problem or not would be entirely up to him. The other was proof of that.

It wasn't the first time he was guiltily glad. But it would be the first time he said it sensibly.

'I'm glad all this happened you know.'

He could have burst out laughing at the expression but the situation dictated otherwise. Even if the conversation was going to go on record for being one of the most awkward ones he'd ever have to force himself through. It was even worse than any envisioning of their "first" meeting, but they'd have to make do.

'Are you supposed to be my conscience?' The other's tone was drowning in emotion, but all in all it was a tone he could recall from his not-so-distant memories. There was even a bitter and somewhat ironic twist to the tone; it only marginally differed from the: "why are you trying to save me" question.

This time, Koichi couldn't help but explode into laughter at the question though. Seriously: conscience? _Him_? The guy who'd been the first to hop onto this particular Volkswagen. What in the world had even possessed the other to ask that sort of question? Unless by conscience he meant an element of the supernatural. Of course, it didn't help that they shared the same face.

Although the other's expression had twisted into a somewhat sour glare.

Unfortunately…or perhaps it was another degree of good fortune (adrenaline really was a miracle worker), the bangs and flashes distant disallowed much of a conversation. Particularly since it was almost all black lightning now.

'I think we'd better deal with Cherubimon first.' And he offered the other the beast spirit he still held.

If it were him, he wouldn't have taken the spirit. He'd taken long enough with his own after all, and that had been standing innocently in the middle of a chamber. The other knew perfectly well he had been Duskmon, even if the human identity was lost. But he had taken the spirit without much of a fight. He hadn't used it immediately though. He had just looked at it.

It was a while before he spoke again. The flashes probably sped up the process though.

'I could blame myself.'

Silence.

'I could blame you.'

'You could,' the slightly elder of the pair agreed.

More silence.

'You could blame Cherubimon,' Koichi offered.

'So could you,' the other pointed out in much the same tone he had used previously…and completely contradictory to the other's which held only relief.

It wasn't lost on either of them the similarities they both shared, both in appearance and _ex_perience.

'He saved my life though.'

'He did the same with me.'

Were they trying to justify their own choices or Cherubimon's actions?

Then there was screaming they hadn't heard before.

'They're my friends.'

* * *

Koji said it slowly but truthfully. 'They're my friends.'

The other stared wordlessly at him. Unblinking. It was a little unnerving, a conundrum that still needed to be unravelled. But there was so many things.

It was easy to see how the lure of apathy was so…alluring. But he could, perhaps in an extremely oblique way, see why the other was glad. Having someone who shared the experience made it less of an individual mistake and more a flaw of humanity.

* * *

Koichi said nothing to the comment, simply adding one of his own: 'They need your help.'

The other was gone as soon as the words finished pronouncing themselves. The ponytail whipped behind him as he vanished into the labyrinth. The wraiths wouldn't bother him anymore; they'd broken all the mirrors in that hall. More lives Cherubimon had saved. More lives they'd freed from a loop that eventually led back into the cycle. Perhaps that was how life worked. It really did seem unavoidable.

He followed, more slowly, after his brother. Maybe one day soon he'd be able to say those same words in the same tone. If someone had told him they'd share such a thing together, he'd have laughed in diluted scorn: his way of showing disbelief, although it often got misinterpreted. But if light and darkness could fall into the same trap, humanity must be really messed up.

But they also had hope. Because with all bad in life came the good. And they'd both been lucky: to have each other, even if the situation had been nothing he'd ever dreamed of, to have those who would take an enemy without a second thought…he still believed the brunette was rather naïve on the matter though, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing in equation. The whole world worked like that after all, and its principles were no different.


End file.
